Fairytale Threads Wrapped All Around You
by Temptation Through Perception
Summary: Lily always listened. It's what she's taught, it's her. That's it. What else could it be? And Harry did tell her. Told her fairytales made of green light and red eyes. Silver skull-faces on top of black robes. The green-lit skull eating a snake. Then Tom shows her more. Shows her spells, morsmordre, avada kedavra, crucio...Fairytale it wasn't. Never was. Never will be. COMPLETE


**Oneshot Harry Potter Next-gen with crossover elements (**_**all the way back**_**) with the series. This is post-mortem love from Harry/Voldemort in the messed up way you can get when you finally **_**understand**_** what happened to someone and they're still talking to you. There's also an odd **_**listen to me child, I watch you**_** reversal of **_**that**_** genre, because Lily Luna gets to be the child-like mother, and she'll take care of Tom until it turns to a pretty full-out LilyII/TMR endgame pairing.**

_**Warnings**_** – this is very much written about love and hate and how they turn into each other. It rates a T because of the mentions to hatred from one parent. Sort of evokes my paranoia, but this fic was generically directed towards the older age. Nothing explicit, but a scene of someone's hatred towards one person. A little talk, you could take it one way or another. Something about 'perfect-families' that could be a little triggered, but I don't see it happening. Not supposed to be called fluff, and it's one of those reality-is-dark stories that's not really about reality, it's only about twisted truth.**

**Canon could be twisted a bit, I didn't check much – but it's going to be pretty small. As far as I could tell, Albus was Harry's favorite, but he doesn't play much in this story, and it's Lily who gets most of Harry's attention. Ginny is bitter, and there's something about little Lily Luna that invites the darkness (**_**they're moths to a candle flame~**_**).**

**(**_**even from her own father**_**)**

**I possibly found the concept from a fanfiction I read. And probably favorited. Unfortunately, I don't want to go through my favorites/follows/**_**and my community**_** to find it, so if someone sees particular similarity with something in this fandom, it was probably the inspiration, and I thank that person and the author, because they somehow managed to get me to write a proper oneshot more than two thousand words. In Harry Potter fanfiction, no less.**

**Thanks for NeonEnigma88 is offered here now, because this person managed to give a proper reason why Lily would…do what she does in the end (not spoiling my own story), even though I'm pretty sure I completely destroyed what you had actually written. Still – thank you so much!**

**The break-symbol-things once had not-very-much-reason for me except I needed some kind of symbol, but I realized it could have another reasoning. Sort of an out-there one, but I'll accept guesses, though you don't need to truly care about it in the actual story. It's a bit of a little afterthought of **_**wait a second, this could play into the story like…**_

* * *

**Listen to Their Game**

(_and how it will fail_)

)o(

Daddy tells you a lot.

So much (_too much_) wrapped in the beautiful cotton-candy-ribbon-memories of a fairytale.

(_fairytales can be real_)

Daddy tells you about so many battles, fights, skirmishes and confrontations that he's been in. He's got shivering lines running in spider webs across his heart and soul, and you can see them.

You're four years old, and you listen patiently as Daddy talks, words weaving a thick, mutilated tapestry depicted in perfection all around you as your brothers play Qudditch outside, even as thick, fluffy snowflakes (_unique little ones_) drift down, painting the once-green grass startlingly vivid white (_blinding light_) as you wonder if the colored jets of light Daddy is talking about will light them up (_fireworks going to destroy_) and if the material Daddy is trying to steer around would look darker or brighter on the blinding, jagged silk the world has been turned to.

Daddy tries not to say it out loud, but you are smart enough that you can connect the words together, finish the weaving he has tried to draw your eyes away from, the weaving that has to be there, but he tries to skip (_and never can_).

Blood.

But oh well, it's a sly thing, a child's innocence. Old and new (_and so young_) at the same time it envelopes everything. You don't really understand it all (_one day_), but that's still your innocence there. Such a singer's word, written in the song of a child (_a song of yours_), even if you didn't know it's truth.

"Daddy, how could he die if he's i-mor-tal?" you sound out the word, trying to understand it.

(_it shows you are a child, that you didn't notice when Horcruxes were introduced into the weave, the dark, bloody ravaged threads made perfect_)

Daddy looks caught for a moment (_deer in the headlights, about to fall_), halted in the game (_so ready to fall, but you haven't seen that yet, you don't play that game, little pawn-queenling_), but he sweeps you off the ground and into his lap, a smile on his face as you giggle.

But there isn't much to laugh about when you get his response.

"Because he was just an old man who was scared of Death"

And you hear something in his voice (_melancholy_) as he talks about this _Dark Lord_.

(_and a longing for what he calls Death_)

* * *

(_flip it all around and turn it all back round_)

* * *

**They Want to Keep It Behind Your Back**

(_and whisper the whole way around_)

)o(

No one you've ever seen, met, or heard likes, or wants to talk about _Him_. They won't even say His name.

(_you know that it's not just him, it's Him_)

You're small and you've got fairytale threads wrapped all around you (_don't have to breathe anymore_) and you're covered with them (_whispering his name_) as you roam the small house that the Potter family stays is because Daddy doesn't like the Potter Manor, and his parents had stayed in a little cottage quite like this.

Apparently they say that Potter's Cottage in Godric's Hollow is a monument, festooned with (_red and gold_) mementos and signatures wishing Harry Potter very well. They wrote everywhere, and it's owned by the Ministry now – a memorial of the First War (_and how it began again_).

They say that signatures are everywhere – people wanting to leave a memento (_tell him they __love__ him_) and people who called for war. Memories of everyone. You wonder if they meant _everyone_, not just who they think Daddy is (_who he never was_).

But Daddy still doesn't like the Cottage there. He tells you that the dead talk too much there, and you smile and agree, watching as he smiles back.

(_there's sorrow there as well_)

But when you ask Daddy about Him, you are usually greeted with a long litany of curses before he realizes himself, and sits down, often getting a glass of scotch or brandy, and tells you about this man, this snake-man, a man who no-one wants to say his name, even though he's _gone_.

You know that Daddy means that he's _dead_, not _gone_, and he's trying to switch out words for you, so you patiently allow him, a little girl who just wants Daddy to be happy. It's a reciprocating, mutual (_symbiotic_) relationship, even if you don't know the words for it.

(_even if it's all just a thought, an idea_)

But as he talks, you sit and look up at him, with his green eyes that people call _Avada Kedavra eyes_ in hushed voices behind his back. You've actually got the same eyes as him, but people don't make the complete comparison. Your eyes aren't _quite_ as acid-like as his, so people talk about your resemblance to Lily Potter. Heavens, you've even got the name, the hair, the eyes, and very nearly the skin. You don't freckle, actually. It's a pass-down from your father, who got it from his father. In entirety, you've got absolutely nothing from your mother, which is rather funny, as she hates you.

(_and you know it_)

Children don't usually say such things, but you know that it's the truth. You've gotten that from your father, actually. The trusting air but the fact that you _know_ in the end, that it's the truth, and it always has been.

(_you've always known_)

You've known it ever since you were small (_too small_) and your hair in fiery pigtails, and you asked Mother for a bedtime story.

You know that Mother hates bedtime stories now.

(_you still don't know why, you still wonder why_)

Oh, she used to be _Mummy_, but very slowly it turned into Mother, until Ginevra Potter was nothing but the name _Mother_ and an odd figure standing around in the household, always staring with those sharply narrowed brown eyes at her youngest child, her only daughter.

You.

Sometimes you think that you can see something in your Mother's eyes spark, an odd, indescribable emotion very unknown to a tiny child with fire-hair and forest-green eyes and ivory skin. She's bitter and pinched as she looks at you, a far cry from the soft emotions that come around your older brothers James and Albus, a complete about-face from everything she does to anyone else. She eyes you with disdain, obviously, even to a small child like you, wondering _what on earth went wrong here?_

* * *

**It's Terrible**

(_because you can't understand it_)

)o(

It's a terrible paradox to her, knowing that their family is very much like Harry's parents, only a few changes and switches in eye colors and emotions and personalities. Little (_not really_) things that all are not quite that good in Ginevra (Weasley) Potter's eyes.

(_we're all falling down, and you're helping all along_)

Mrs. Potter is very aware to the resemblance of her daughter to the old Mrs. Potter, her daughter's namesake. And she finds it absolutely disgusting that a _creature_ so alike to Lily Potter nee Evans can have _such_ an obsession with what killed the elder.

And she can easily make perfect comparisons to the time in her second year, with the book and the name and the words of perfect calligraphy in the pretty swirls that _He_ used during that time.

Oh yes, Ginny Potter can perfectly remember each swoop, and she watches as her own child, a girl too exactly looking like the old Lily Potter, writes in a round, childish writing that would make a perfect match to the thin-and-thick lines of elegant calligraphy and careful script that Ginny's _own_ handwriting used to complement.

And in an odd, twisted way that _nearly_ feels of jealousy but truly tastes of the knowledge that her child is already going to be twisted, Ginevra Potter nee Weasley _hates_ her own child.

After all, her daughter, who was supposed to be her pride and joy, wants to know about a murderer, and that should always mean that something's wrong.

(_because that was what happened the first time, wasn't it?_)

* * *

(_just listen to the fact, I don't know it at all_)

* * *

**I Don't Know Why**

(_but I tried_)

)o(

"Why do you want to know about _Him_?" she spits out at you, and you recoil, visibly. Because it hurts, and in that instant, you've been whisked away into your first adventure of terror and grayness and absolute differences and things that never made sense until life and death because you don't understand quite yet.

(_you might never_)

Because it's not really understood by you _why_ Mother is Mother and she always _always_ hates and hates and hates and you don't really know why Daddy always loves and talks and is always so _painful_ but you don't see how they are right or not because

_Daddy's always known_.

"I think that the story's very nice" you say, truthfully and scared of how to say it without Mother getting more upset. So you take a leaf from Daddy's book, and exchange words "It's a bit like an odd fairytale, with princes and princesses with good and evil and light and dark"

(_and the fact that she differentiates evil and dark and good and light speaks volumes_)

And the fact that Lily wants Him as the prince and she would probably be the princess makes Ginny hate her even more.

But maybe it was a hereditary thing, Ginny vaguely thinks in the back of her mind, with the little girl who used to write to _Tom_. Starting with her. And all the Potter girls with the red hair would _always_ fall for the villain, because they'd always hear about them in the way that oh, was _never_ the villain.

(_but never the hero. That was set for their husbands, of course, the small, shy boy who didn't want the fame_)

Somewhere deep in you, your fierceness is changing. You had always thought of family, but you were finding a new family, beginning to make a _different_ one.

And Ginny Potter wasn't very high on the list to be in the new family.

But as you look up at your Mother, you can see all the hate roiling and _boiling_ behind her eyes, completely focused on _you_.

You scream. You scream so _much_ (_too much_) and it keeps on going and going and going…

_Ithurtsithurtsithurtsdon'tdoitdon'tdoitpleasepleasepleasepleaseI'msorrysosorryDaddyDaddystopherstopherithurts__**pleasepleaseplease**__DaddyMother'shurtingmeDaddy!_

You _scream_.

It hurts.

And it's the last time that you beg.

And it's the first time that you call for someone _not_ Daddy.

(_Tom!_)

Daddy bursts into the room at that point, and barely hears the name that gives Ginny full ability to lock you up in your room. He's really hearing a different voice, actually. A young boy's voice in the back of his mind, from the memories the old man had shown him, a voice that had once been raised in commanding, proper tones.

(_maybe it still was, he didn't know_)

And awfully, that name brings in unwelcome thoughts to Ginny Potter's perfect home, and it brings unhappy dreams and awful nightmares to her.

Just like it weaves through your own perfect dreams and lovely worlds.

(_names have power_)

* * *

**We Start Forgetting**

(_every time we start knowing_)

)o(

Later on, once the incident is kept in the corners of both adults' minds and is poisoning every encounter you have with your Mother, Harry tells you more.

Tells you of the diary with the blank pages and blood of ink, of the locket with the emerald snake curled upon it, of the Death-ring, of the wicked Raven daughter's stolen tiara, the loyal, powerful snake called (_Nagini_), and finally of himself, the lightning-bolt burning scar, the piece of soul that had kept itself inside him. The soul that died for him.

You wonder if that's the reason you and Dnoaddy like each other so much (_or maybe it's why Voldemort and him know each other too much_).

Because as he talks and as you play in your world of pretty lies and lovely truths, he can tell that He lives within you and in his mind, he is really talking to Him, instead of little you.

You like the idea, actually. It doesn't matter to you.

And when Daddy tells you of His horrible childhood, you think that yours is His second one. It's all for him this time, and oh, how well it is.

And that's when you promise not to get into Slytherin, but for a completely different reason than what Ginny Potter would have liked.

You won't do it because you don't want Him to be bored, and because real Slytherins shouldn't get into Slytherin unless the Hat works in a different manner than you think. But Daddy says that it takes your opinion into account, and so there you are, all set, an seven-year-old girl with no understanding of truth really, but you're still _trying_.

And that's what matters.

(_except not to Him_)

(_**because you're all that matters now**_)

* * *

**You Weave the Story Around Me**

(_I always win in the end_)

)o(

It's when you are curled up under Daddy's arm as he tells you in a hushed voice, the story again, weaving it further around, entrapping you (_not really_) into a world of blood and red corruption and it's a terrible game that makes it further through your mind, because it's really not you who is playing in it.

It's not really Daddy who's playing either.

It's Harry.

And Voldemort.

(_not Tom, not really_)

Because while Harry and Voldemort play their deadly little game of taunts and terribleness, it's Daddy who keeps you safe, and Tom who whispers in your mind every second that Daddy's not around. They make an awful team, really, but they patch every hole in the tapestry of corruption (_propriety_), crimson blood and dark revenge and proper vengeance ever gets.

And you are sitting in the middle, humming as you hug your teddy bear.

Because that's Harry's little safeguard, and when the nightmares get too bad and you're curled up with Daddy, the teddy bear is there, protecting the two of you, circle after circle.

And you're in the center.

Doesn't that make you the princess?

"Daddy, tell _me_ about _them_" you whisper.

And a tale of words and war is woven around you as Daddy tells you of Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, and you snuggle closer.

* * *

**You've Been Feeding Me Poison Since Birth**

(_and I've only been living off of it_)

)o(

Perhaps the stories poison your mind (_of course they do, and everyone knows it_), but they also keep you safe, in a twisted world of truth and lies melded and made, never pushed and pulled, winding threads wrapped all around and over you.

Because truth and lies can never work that way.

For you, a delicate little eleven-year-old that looks closer to nine and then fifteen, with your now-wise countenance (_oh, you're wise, wise little Lily in everything of the truth and lies_) and slender frame and almost no baby fat, it's beautiful and simple, these convoluted things that no-one but you and your teddy bear can truly understand.

It's funny, because as much as Harry and Voldemort know enough (_they started it_) and Daddy and Tom save you, they never knew, never understood, because as they weave, their minds get caught up, and they don't _see_. They're already caught in their own spinning as you dance and whirl around, the silken weave floating around everywhere and perfect.

"Harry? Tell me about them" you say, and Daddy whips around, face tightening ever so slightly (_but you can see it_) as he becomes someone not _quite_ like Daddy, but very much so.

(_or perhaps it was the other way around?_)

* * *

**Maybe We Were Right**

(_or perhaps we were wrong_)

)o(

The one thing people don't really know is the name of the teddy bear.

Well, you know it, but _it_ told you not to tell anyone else.

See, you were locked up in your bedroom when you called His name.

For the teddy bear - well, his name is _Tom_, you see. Tom _Riddle_.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Daddy (_Harry?_) gave you him, you know. Said that if Daddy was gone, missing for a bit, the teddy bear would protect you.

Well, the teddy bear tells you things, you know. Beautiful things.

Tom is very nice. Nicer than those in the stories that Daddy tells you.

He's very nice. Besides, he's all human-looking. Dark hair and dark eyes and swirls of magic sweeping across. Not really a teddy bear as he holds you and you hold him.

Besides, Daddy gave him to you. Smiles every time he sees Tom in the teddy bear form.

Tom says not to tell _Harry_ about the other form. Not to say the name _Tom_ to Harry.

Daddy's alright though. You don't really know who knows who.

It's alright though, Tom is nice.

(_keeps you safe_)

**(**_forever_**)**

* * *

**Sometimes You're Just Watching**

(_because you can't always see her watch_)

)o(

You can tell that Ginny Potter is seeing all of those big ideas that lack those small little details (_or just have different ones, but that's awful_). You can tell that your mother is seeing herself and Harry, _Lily and James Potter_, and then that makes your big brother James _Harry Potter_, the way it should have gone, and that makes Albus _the next child_, and you _the youngest_.

But you can see that she's also seeing all of those awful details, like the fact that James doesn't have the _avada-kedavra_, he's got her brown eyes (_nothing like James Potter_) and he's too much of a prankster himself, not making the friendships of the Mauraders, only working with his closest, _Fred Weasley_, the boy who is trying to fill the shoes of a twin that's _no longer there_.

And you can tell that she's already _ever-so-slightly_ afraid (_distancing_) from Albus, the boy who got the name of a grandfather and the name of a double-agent, because honestly, she thinks he's going to go Dark, even though Albus Dumbledore was Light and Severus Snape stayed with the Light (_in the end_).

Especially when she finds you and Albus playing around with the potion-ingredients and supplies, and you end up being the favorites of Slughorn, since Severus Snape and Lily Evans were always the potioneers of their age, she only stares and backs away slowly, even though you know she wants it to be like the old family.

(_but reality always tastes wrong to her now_)

* * *

**They Want to Play**

(_you've found your playmates_)

)o(

When she steps into Hogwarts, the first step, everything welcomes her (_again_) because they can feel all the traces of Tom and Harry, two boys who came in, who learnt it all (_in such different ways_) and spent their last there.

That's when she knows, she _understands_ that she can't be in Gryffindor, and she could never be in Slytherin. Because of course, she can't choose. Can't choose between messy-haired, tired, little, shy, Harry, or tall, handsome, neat Tom. One trying to stay away, the other embracing.

(_in the back of her mind, she knows that the battles have been won_)

And it's in the moment that the Hat tells her _You could have been a Hufflepuff_ that she knows it truer. She knows the way they are aligned. Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, the light houses, Ravenclaw, and medium-like, but far closer to Slytherin, the dark.

And so the Hat screams _Ravenclaw!_ and whispers to her that she was too much like Rowena and Helga that it hurt its' heart.

And she wonders about the tale of the Four, but it's quickly stripped away from the things that the stones of the castle tell her of Tom.

(_because they know_)

And the first time that she steps into the Room of Requirement, midway through the year, the first thing that comes now is filled with close-to memorabilia of Tom Riddle.

_Lily Luna Riddle is a fine name_.

Lily Potter is the name of a lost hero (_dying for a child_).

(_Lily Luna isn't too much of a hero, she knows_)

(**but she'd still die for her child. There's only no need**)

(~_this time around_)

* * *

**It's When You Finally Ask**

(_that they finally know_)

)o(

"Harry, did you know?" you ask as you sit on the ground, knitting while you lean back on your father's legs and look at a book (_paper and pages, nothing like the magic and mystery you usually read_) in front of you, about a girl and her perfect family (_so unlike yours_) that goes on an adventure (_Daddy's told you about the adventure_) when she gets a letter (_flutter goes the owl through the window_).

"What is it?" he asks as you smile, turning the page of the book and casting a new row.

"_I love Tom_" you say, and his hand stops from where it's going for the remote. You twist around, and see startled, horrified green eyes (_avada kedavra_) and what looks more like a man who has realized he has lost, than the father and Daddy that you know.

Because now he knows. He had lost from the second you had stepped inside Hogwarts. Of course he had felt it the times that he had visited, the way that Hogwarts curled protectively around the little Ravenclaw girl with the old green eyes and pale skin and blood-hair, the incredible skills she had, the way she memorized everything like it was the second time reading it. But he had never known.

(_I guess Tom has won, right Daddy?_

_Apparently, popkin_)

"He's a little like a role model. To strive for" and you see Harry as he knows that he's lost even further. As you walk away, hair waving and shimmering with darkness as Harry begins to nearly give up claims, you hear his voice (_oh that voice_) –

_So easy to fall in love with someone one has never met_.

And oh how he sighs, reminiscing in terrible thoughts of his second year, and what happened to your mother, caught with him in the first place. And he wonders (_thinks_) that maybe it's the same hapstance, except that you've never met him, you've never heard his words, you've never seen his smile.

(_he's never taught you_)

But _oh_, Harry. You want to say. You've already met him. You already know him. He whispers around you, in your mind, in your head, tinting your world further grey as splashes of red are etched across the fiery ashen aether. Tom is even closer than you and Voldemort, with your fairytales and green lights hitting foxes as it all turns round and round.

Because _you_ are what it turns around, and Tom is already around you, doesn't have to turn, though you can.

* * *

**I've Finally Realized**

(_and I never knew where_)

)o(

By the time that you're twelve, you've finally understood something. Something that only Tom had found out, yet no-one had told you.

You found it out either way.

Because you finally realize that Voldemort was really immortal.

(_another loop in the thread_)

And yet he hadn't _understood_ it. He had wanted to live forever.

(_instead, he got immortality_)

Because as long as people still remember someone, as long as their legacy is still burned into the world, as long as their names are still fresh in people's minds.

Harry Potter had never wanted immortality (_for himself_).

Yet he would always have it.

But not Daddy (_just Harry_) and not Tom Riddle (_I hate that name_).

And in the end (_because that's all that matters_) not you.

Because while your fairytale-weave is draped all around you, soaking into you, you aren't really part of the story.

(_you're everything it's around – the only anchor, the reason they're immortal, the reasoning again_)

But that's all right, you know.

Because it always works.

(_and because the name Voldemort will strike fear in people's hearts and minds, just as the name Harry Potter is the epitome of bravery and strength, they had both found how to make their perfect mortality, all wrapped around a little girl with a thread of life._

_And so perhaps the little girl will find her own perfect mortality, made with the same threads and whispered voices. Why not?_)

* * *

**We're About to Fall**

(_yet we still stand_)

)o(

Many times, all Harry does is sit and remember.

Remember flashes of light, stars and their names gleaming as they fought one and the other, a hissing voice, terrorstruck people who would not, _could_ not speak a name, so great their fear of the one who bore it.

Remember yew and holly wands, phoenix song, and the many lives (_and silky lies_) of only one other.

Or the lives that oh yes, the other so did take.

Or at least, he _took_.

Many times, the only things Harry can believe are the hiss-whisper/slide of parseltongue, a language now only Harry and the snakes themselves can speak now, and the _greengreengreen_ light of his dreams, with the long pale wand of yew (_not elder, no, no, not elder_) and the _redredred_ eyes in the _palepalepale_ snake-like face.

And of course, the whisperings about a female, a female with the touch of the slithering-slide-speech that has appeared now, in Harry's own lifetime.

(_of course, he never believes that said female is so so so close to him. _Ginny?_ he wonders_)

Other times he dives into his recollections, finding every detail there possibly could be.

(_the smell, like pine needles crushed into snakeskin, boiled through ashes and such harsh flame_)

He finds them all, wraps them tightly in fairytale-weave thread, and feeds them as though they are beautiful gems capable of edibility, little jewels made of exquisite taste, to his daughter, his daughter of autumn-red hair and grass-green.

After all, someone has to remember, don't they?

And that's what Harry's daughter is.

Someone to remember.

(_yet, is she remembered?_)

* * *

**I Don't Know Where It Went Wrong**

(_only that it did_)

)o(

Some days, Harry sits in his study, looking at the yew and phoenix feather wand in his drawer, nary a speck of dust upon it, though Harry never uses it, thanks all the _memories_. Just as the Horcruxes are under his floorboards (_though the locket is missing now, and Harry thinks that he can catch a flash of it proper and unbroken upon his daughter's neck_) the wand is still close.

He picks it up, rolling it between his fingers, but stops.

_It's not real_.

* * *

**I Sneak In to Watch You**

(_because you don't know_)

Or do you?

)o(

And a day later, Harry sneaks into Lily's Charms lesson, and watches the pale wood shimmer as Lily banishes a cushion straight across the room to where it lands neatly (_and oh so prettily_) on the stack of everyone else's.

And he realizes how much Tom (_Riddle_) had won. It had never been Voldemort.

(_it had always been Tom_)

And Harry wondered where the wand of yew and dragon heartstring had gone to now. He had a feeling that it had been a memoir of him. And now she was Tom's.

(_but never Voldemort_)

And Harry thinks that that's the way it is.

_Lily and Tom._

Harry and Voldemort.

* * *

I built you, you're breaking me

(_so does it matter?_)

Why do I care?

* * *

**You See, I See**

(_did you know, it's true, what I saw_)

)o(

(_Is true that you're falling, Daddy?_ she asks, moonshine and water-rays woven within her hair.

_Yes sweetheart_, he answers, glimmers (_dark or light?_) glinting within his eyes, _yes_.

_Well, may I catch you?_ she asks, head tilted in childishness still.

_I was catching you, sweetheart_, Daddy says, eyes dark as night, _and you were made to catch Harry, darling_.

_Are you sure?_ she asks, eyes flickering (_darkdarkdark, _**too dark**).

_Yes darling_, he answers, _I watched_.)

* * *

**It's All Part of Me**

(_you build me, I break you_)

)o(

By the time you are fifteen, there's a lot of regret.

(_it's not hers_)

But Harry regrets as Daddy rejoices.

_Voldemort screams as Tom smirks_.

Harry regrets telling his daughter of Tom, of weaving the tapestry of Voldemort, of telling her of the Horcruxes (_he can see the silver chain around her neck, the glitter in her hands_) and of her. He regrets it all, but Harry and Daddy still love her.

Voldemort regrets (_hates_) it all, until he can't really tell which is which anymore. But that's okay for him, Harry and Lily and Tom know, because they're all mixed together into a world of fairytale. And that's fine. That's how it's always been since Lily.

The world is fully tinted grey now for you, and you're thinking, thinking, always thinking. Tom fills every minute, every hour, every day, every second, and you love him ever more now as you keep life around you, and your fairytale knowledge and tapestry-cloak of Tom and all even closer. Green ribbons (_actually, they're snakes, you know_) slither around your hair now, the locket gleaming at your neck and your voice sweet and able to pronounce all of the language of Parseltongue(_hissing and whispering in a way that your human voice slides into once in a blue moon, sweet girl you are_).

And there's still a puzzle around you, and you've found the pieces and fit them together but one.

(_Harry, tell me a story_)

(Daddy, tell me, please)

* * *

**Carefully Do, Does the Mad Hatter Run**

(_are you watching as Alice runs after him?_)

)o(

See, the thing about Lily is that she was never the Mad Hatter. Why would she be? She's been designed to be taught. Her life revolves around the things she's told.

In a way, she's the ultimate gossip. She knows all, but she knows the truth.

Partially omniscient, in a way.

* * *

But what's to say you don't know all?

After all, you know that _Tom_ knows all. You know that _He_ knows all.

He tells you much, you see. He tells you about ages and ages, spells and charms, hexes and curses. The ceremonies of the Dark, the Olde Rituals of the Pureblood Family.

Yes, it's sad that you've not completely pure blood. You look far too much like the single Mudblood of your lineage.

But Tom promises that shan't matter. Not when it is _you_.

You aren't sure what he means, making the exception just for _you_. You know it means something, something at _least_.

After all, Tom is _brilliant_. He knows all, and he's talking to you.

Talking, talk he does. You and He talk _sososo_ much. It confounds your waking hours, turns every dream and nightmare into one about him.

He's sometimes scary. Or at least he _was_. He still is, but you also vacillate back to the times when you were but eight, and Tom was your best friend, your protector, your brother, your _perfection_.

He still is all of that. He's wrapped all around you, tweaking everything about you. Dreams about harmless things turn into mirrors of some of the horrors he's worked. Nightmares about apocalypses

Your second-year boggart was Tom, actually. Tom cast the way he was in some of the nightmares, face twisted and a long, odd wand twirling between his fingers. He advanced on you with an utterly terrifying expression on his face, and when he spoke, it was fluid and slithering - the tongue snakes speak to you in.

Boggart-Tom had spoken to you in soft, silky tones shaded through with the snake-language. The way he spoke when he'd get angry and you'd have to do something. When he wove nightmares wholly about you, swaddled you in the worst humanity had to offer, so that he could show you what was wrong.

He talks to you differently, now. More like an equal, you'd guess. Now, when he speaks to you in those tones, it's for something different. He's always been solid, always able to touch things, make lights turn off, spin you _aroundandaroundandaround_, but nowadays the fact he can touch you is for..._different_ matters.

He used to be your brother, but now that's been slipping away. You guess that now it's a bit like the whole dating gig that everyone your age is obsessed with.

But it's almost always been like this, though. Simply a different cycle, a different thought. When he pins you beneath the covers, you feel comfortable now. Always have. Secure in the knowledge that it's _Tom_.

(_it was never going to be anyone else. Who'd have had such an idea like that?_)

* * *

**In the End, It Always Goes Again**

(_around and around and around again_)

)o(

You sit in the Restricted Section with books spread all about you. Tom knows every trick to make each book calm, to get them to allow you to read their pages. He sits behind you, arms wrapped around your waist as a hand twirls a long lock of your hair _aroundandaroundandaround_.

He's making it awfully hard to focus, but the book you're reading is _awfully_ interesting, and you soldier on, eager to finish the book.

It's about Blood Magic, an extremely beautiful branch of magic, you think. It's about the history of this obscure branch, and the intricate _how_ of the way it works.

For a second you halt, remembering the echo of Harry's voice.

"_...awful, awful magics of blood and death, Lily. He used them to resurrect himself. Blood magic because the final component of all his workings was my blood. It's bad magic, Lilsy. Very bad magic._"

Tom's hand in your hair stops, and he pulls you away to turn you around, ripping the book from your limp hands as he grabs the sides of your face with both hands, bearing you down with his full weight as you stare up into his eyes.

They're darker than usual, and streaks of magic are curling about his eyes in multicolored curlicues, featuring red and black most heavily. There's no green whatsoever. That's all yours, you know.

There's the howl of the wind in your ears, and the crash of waves sounds about you. Your mouth opens in a scream as the raging of the elements make themselves known to you, but everything but the searing heat of fire disappears when Tom's mouth crashes down on yours and you cling blindly to him in reflex, because _Tom is always going to save you_.

(_even from Harry_)

**(**_maybe even from Daddy_**)**

* * *

**Understanding is Always Different From Seeing**

(_seeing kills_)

)o(

When Harry understands, his world falls about him. When he sees (_truly sees_), that's when he crumbles inside.

It's the moment when Lily is fourteen and he's talking with the teachers and ends up staying a bit after.

It's the instant when the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher lets something slip about the fact that they had covered boggarts in Lily's second year (_and Lily-darling hadn't told him_) and that apparently her boggart had been a tall, rather handsome dark-haired boy "about sixteen," with eyes that "looked like they'd gotten tattooed with red swirls" and had spoken in a different language, "a bit like snakes hissing, made into a language."

Then it's the second when the Transfiguration teacher chimes in (for Minerva had retired but three years ago, keeping only the Headmistress position), speaking about how Lily was a "sweet girl, a bit quiet, but she's a Ravenclaw through and through. I've given her generic passes for the Restricted Section so many times that the librarian and I made her a long-standing one."

And the last comment from the Professor Sinistra - still the Astronomy teacher. "She's quiet, but it's a little odd. I've seen her with this older boy, you see. Many times. In Hogsmeade, even on school grounds. But I can swear that he's not a Hogwarts student. He's not old enough to be out, but he's no student here. They're almost always together when she's alone from other people."

Harry can read between the lines.

_Yes, he's really lost (her)._

_Yes, she really is lost (forever)._

_**I guess, Tom's really won, this time.**_

(_and perhaps for all time_)

* * *

**Maybe I've Gone Mad**

(_but you're the reason why_)

)o(

By the time Lily is fifteen, she's probably gone mad. No-one knows, but Tom smirks as she wraps the cloak of invisibility around her and reads books of death and dark, crimson hair turning blood as it hangs around her.

The books on her lap shiver and whisper to her, just as Tom does the same, and they craft a tale that will become fairy in such a close time, a legend of the times.

(_and a little girl said, Daddy, please tell me a fairytale._

_And Harry asked her, what fairytale?_

_Death watched as she told, a tale of drakons, dark mages and magic and truth_

_And Harry, Master of Death, told her, such a fairytale of truth and lies_

_Because Death knew that it was always truth, and always lies_)

* * *

(and a girl of dark-hair and manic-terror-green eyes asks her mother of blood-hair and terror-green eyes, _tell me a fairytale gone wrong_)

(**and her mother of blood-hair and terror-green eyes looks up at the girl of dark-hair and manic-terror-green eyes' father of dark-hair and manic-dark eyes and they both smile at their daughter**)

And they tell her such a tale of darkness and delight and wonders that never cease as they wrap sunlight and rain-dances around her until it all comes back and around and around.

* * *

(_because that's the way it works, that's the way it always worked, and that's the way it will work_)

_Daddy, do tell a fairytale of drakons and dark mages_.

_Mummy, do tell a fairytale of dark and death._

(**because in the end, you didn't know.**

_**and now you do**_)


End file.
